ndial Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Received today! Thanks St®yker, that was a pretty fast delivery! Have some questions though about its.... usage! (I don't want to mess the current thread, but hey mods, move accordingly if necessary!) Haven't connect it to the cart slot of my 65XE yet. I wonder how do I insert rom files in it? Do I need special hardware to do it (programmer etc)? Please help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 (edited) You program it over SIO2PC (or other SIO device) with the cart plugged in to the cart port... Everything you need is here http://sic.pigwa.net/ Edited September 13, 2011 by orpheuswaking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St(r)yker Posted September 22, 2011 Author Share Posted September 22, 2011 (edited) I am looking for people to test Sicmenu GUI. 5 pieces Sic! Cart 4Mbit is still available ... (shipped approximately 3 weeks) Edited September 22, 2011 by St(r)yker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 (edited) Are you still considering creating the higher capacity (XE only) cart that you mentioned you and Candle were planning? Edited September 22, 2011 by Tezz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Yeah, I'd want in on an 8Mbit cart if and when it becomes available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qix_maniac Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I would like one too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Tezz, i've only said its possible, no development for it has been made - i cannot take everything over my head, and i certainly can't pay for every prototype - it really costs alot if there will be any intrest in this, and Stryker decides he want to do this - i can design it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Are you still considering creating the higher capacity (XE only) cart that you mentioned you and Candle were planning? Yeah, I'd want in on an 8Mbit cart if and when it becomes available. I would like one too Atarimax 8-megabit (1MB) carts are $100 for 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdemming Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 (edited) Are you still considering creating the higher capacity (XE only) cart that you mentioned you and Candle were planning? With the SIDE cart around the corner, I don't see much use for flash carts with a higher capacity that the current available. For the current cartridge games (like Space Harrier, Bomb Jake, etc), the current carts are big enough. And for multi-carts, I think that a SIDE cart with CF-cards provide much more capacity, flexibility (various file systems) and are more user friendly (with FAT 32 loader) than a regular flash carts can provide (at reasonable costs). Robert [Edit] The only thing I'm missing is an XE compatible multi-cart that can run XE cart games unmodified. AFAIK, all the current flash carts are not XE cart compatible. Ideal to me would be an advanced version of the SIDE cart that also contains 128KB SRAM for cart emulation. Then the SRAM can be loaded with an XE cart image from CF card after which the Atari can reboot to play the cart image from the SRAM. [/Edit] Edited September 23, 2011 by rdemming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 xe game carts doesn't have exacly the same banking scheme, so what you need is very small fpga or mcu fast enought to simulate any banking scheme that might be requred by a certain cart that makes things uneconomical i'm affride whats more - many of these games are available in file version anyways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 ok, no probs Sebastian, I just thought I'd ask to see if it was in the pipeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bob1200xl Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Could you expand the memory addressing to include the 8 bits from the banking register and then just load the program code in the proper banks? 256 banks that hold 8K each would need a 2MB flash. There would be a *lot* of duplicate segments so you wouldn't have to read 2MB from your storage device. Bob xe game carts doesn't have exacly the same banking scheme, so what you need is very small fpga or mcu fast enought to simulate any banking scheme that might be requred by a certain cart that makes things uneconomical i'm affride whats more - many of these games are available in file version anyways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 it could be done,but still, banking register base address varies, plus 2mb of flash would be at 3,3v Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdemming Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 xe game carts doesn't have exacly the same banking scheme, so what you need is very small fpga or mcu fast enought to simulate any banking scheme that might be requred by a certain cart that makes things uneconomical i'm affride whats more - many of these games are available in file version anyways Hi Candle, Do you mean other differences than just the rom size? From the docs I saw, $8000-$9FFF is the bank-switched area. And $A000-$BFFF contains always the last bank. A write to any location in $D5xx will select the bank in $8000-$9FFF. So indeed the last bank will be different for the 32, 64 and 128KB cart variants, but I think that can be solved by just repeating/loading the banks of a 32/64KB cart also in the following banks. Or are there other differences in the XE carts? You are right that there are file versions of many of the XE cart games. But most of them require extended memory. (That problem will be solved soon when I get the Ultimate 1MB ). But not all file versions are that good. For example the file version of Airball pauses/hangs for a few moments when moving to the next room while the original cart has not that problem. Robert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 take a look into altirra sources regarding handling cartridges Robert, then we'll talk about this Sebastian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 Maybe I'm just stupid but can't get my sic!'s to work. To simplify it all I plugged in a cart with 29C020 and booted SDX444_siccart256.atr (6/16/2011) using AspeQt. I get the "SDX/Flash" prompt, set the switch from "down" to "up" and most of the time I got stuck at the "waiting for SDX cartridge" prompt. No matter how I use the switch on the side, it just keeps showing that prompt. In some cases I can get past the prompt while setting the switch to "up" and pressing a key, showing a menu to select which flashROM I have. Since it's a 29C020 I select the "29C.." 256KB option. I replies with that the 256KB ROM image is too big to fit into a 128KB flashROM (?). While continuing anyways it asks to erase flash. At doing so it starts displaying "erase...." and that's about it. Don't know how long it takes to erase the flash but certainly not as long as I have tried. ---------- Next, I try another sic! with 39SF040 on it. The changes this one get's past the first "SDX/flashing" prompt is bigger but still not 100%. Next it shows "Warning: Flash not found!" with the 3 options to select the type of flash. Only 29Cxxx, 29Fxxx and 49Fxxx are listed. No 39SFxxx option. AFAIK a 39SFxxx can be compared to a 29Cxxx so I select the first option and next the "512K" option. It shows "Chip erase", then "Erasing all ..." and what's next? It just sits there, showing it is erasing but never seems to end. Do I miss something obvious? I'm trying this on a 128KB 130XE and to exclude compatibility issues I disconnected my Black-Box. Also, when trying SICFLASH.COM and SICDUMP.COM, running with Sparta-Dos 3.3b, nothing seems to happen either. I never got past the first "press key" prompt. Stryker's pages are no help as all links are invalid (all pointing to "pigwa#"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St(r)yker Posted September 29, 2011 Author Share Posted September 29, 2011 For 2Mbit memory file using SDX444_siccart.atr Run the files from the links: http://sic.pigwa.net/files/test_29C020.atr http://sic.pigwa.net/files/test_39SF040.atr Show the screenshots of what you do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 Show the screenshots of what you do Screenshots won't do as nothing will happen (except for the "enable cart and press key prompt") but at the meanwhile I tried the 2MBit cart in another system (600XL, 64KB) and SDX came up. Since it didn't on my 130XE it must be that particular 130XE that is acting up. Next thing is to find out why it does work (at least the boot part) on the 600XL and not on the 130XE. The 130XE has some cartridge/MMU related mods (ROM Simulator http://www.b-pahl.de/atari8bit/Computer/computer.html and an extra secondary cart slot) but I don't see how this would affect the SIC when the mod is disabled. Already removed the 7400 IC from the simulator to really disable it with no result. Also tried some XE carts (Bug Hunt, Flight Simulator II, Tower Toppler, Load Runner) and however this doesn't say much, they all work without problems in all 3 possible ways (org. XE cart. slot, secondary switched slot and external slot on Black Box) where the SIC doesn't boot at all in any of them. Now I have no idea where to start looking to get the SIC working on that XE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdemming Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 take a look into altirra sources regarding handling cartridges Robert, then we'll talk about this OK, I got some time to look at the Altirra sources. And between the many third-part bank-switch methods, I saw only two types of XE carts. One according to Atari's specifications in various sizes. And one non-Atari extension (in various sizes) that also enables to turn the cart off. All the different sizes use the same bank-switch implementation although with of course a different "bank" mask depending on the size. The only difference between the Atari carts is the number of banks and start bank which is always the last one available. So I don't see any strange variation in XE carts that require special handling. Just repeating the banks of a 32/64 KB cart in the remaining banks of a 128KB cart should solve the size difference problems without hardware changes. To be clear, I'm only interested in the Atari XE cart emulation to run the XE game cart dumps, not all those third-party carts. Robert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 (edited) For 2Mbit memory file using SDX444_siccart.atr Run the files from the links: http://sic.pigwa.net...test_29C020.atr http://sic.pigwa.net...est_39SF040.atr Fixed Well, I think. The 130XE now seems to load SDX from both the 2Mbit and 4Mbit sic! The culprit seemed to be a connection to pin 8 of the MMU which is required for a "cold-reset" mod I did. (from: http://www.b-pahl.de...uter.html#coldr) I placed a 1K resistor between the connection from the MMU to the 74LS123 and this seems to work to get the sic! to boot. The "cold-reset" however acts different, like, sometimes it just does a warm-reset and I'll have to try 2 or 3 times to get a cold-start. Not too much of a problem since usually I have a Black Box connected which has a cold-start feature anyways but it's there in the case I don't have it connected. Next thing is to try if it's actually possible to re-flash the sic!'s but I need a keyboard for that :-) Anyway, it looks promising. edit: forgot IMG code Edited September 30, 2011 by Fox-1 / mnx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 @Fox-1 (And a bit offtopic) ... that is why I created a 100% compatible standard XL OS for, with hard-reset key combo (Shift + Reset = cold boot). No extra hardware in my atari installed... very good solution. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 that is why I created a 100% compatible standard XL OS for, with hard-reset key combo (Shift + Reset = cold boot) This won't do when working and testing without a connected keyboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 (And a bit offtopic) ... that is why I created a 100% compatible standard XL OS for, with hard-reset key combo (Shift + Reset = cold boot). No extra hardware in my atari installed... very good solution. Very interesting! How may I install it on my 800XL? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 If Marius uploads his OS, we could install it on your Ultimate 1MB Phil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 @Fox-1 (And a bit offtopic) ... that is why I created a 100% compatible standard XL OS for, with hard-reset key combo (Shift + Reset = cold boot). No extra hardware in my atari installed... very good solution. Is the Rom available for download ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.